810 days ago
I have been meaning to do this since before Christmas but the good Earl cannot be allowed to get away with what seems to be an open and shut case of good old fashioned Tory sleaze.
872 days ago
Yesterday I flagged up SpectrumX which is in administration but may well make a comeback and investors should not assume they have lost their cash. Time will tell. But what I can now confirm is how and why Tory Grandee, The Earl Of Shrewsbury, has most clearly broken the rules governing cash for questions and is now trying to cover up that fact.
883 days ago
I start with news of two birthdays. Then I look at today’s Superdry ramp from Versarien (VRS), at Wildcat (WCAT), where the FCA has already responded to my missive, and at Nightcap (NGHT) where what I have revealed today is legal but surely stinks to high heaven making the shares utterly uninvestable.
889 days ago
If a company is run by Adam Wilson of Atlantic Carbon and Daniel Stewart infamy and also hires former Daniel Stewart boss Peter Shea on a chunky retainer the word that instantly spring’s to mind is sleaze. Another few words are inevitable long run value destruction. And that brings me to this morning’s announcement.
889 days ago
I discuss what I should write in my weekend Tomograph: losing faith in the CofE or why is sleaze everywhere? That leads neatly onto inflation and that shock US data yesterday. Then I look at the fraud Supply@ME Capital (SYME) where my vindication is complete, and which I can celebrate with vodka infusd plum crumble, Volex (VLX), Manolete (MANO) and Feedback (FDBK)
892 days ago
I start with good news for those who like salacious financial markets sleaze.I have been doing more digging into the David Lenigas, Charlie Wood & Anthony Eastman cesspit and this will become a series. Another installment tomorrow. And as a bonus there is a new bombshell on Julie “Lingerie on Expenses” Meyer MBE on its way. Who’s been a very naughty girl then? Then the Wandisco (WAND) shocker. I explain why today’s RNS is deceitful and why this makes the company uninvestable. Then it is onto Nanosynth (NNN), Darren Winters, The High Street Grp and a £60 million FCA mini-bond failure and finally, another villain of these pages, Colin Bird and a few thoughts on why shares in African Pioneer (AFP) may be tanking. PS I see that dodgy HK360 Limited has been forced to admit its sold its Net Zero Infrastructure (NZI) shares after yesterday’s letter to the FCA from myself. Will Net Zero now force TR1s from other shareholders who have dumped or doesn’t it care about the rules?
892 days ago
Yesterday, I revealed how David Lenigas of Horse Hill infamy and a bunch of disgraced financiers were going to book 900% gains made in just two months via the Aquis listing of Hydrogen One. I am afraid that it gets much worse and NED Fungai Ndoro, who appears to be the only person involved in this nest of vipers not to be given cheap stock, must surely be considering her position.
898 days ago
Like, I suspect, many couples The Mrs and I stare at our fuel bills with horror. We discuss what the financial impact of higher mortgage rates will be when our current deal expires in 18 months time. I present the latest Tesco bill for her to see and it is shocking. These are the grim financial realities we dirty plebs face in Britain 2021. And then we see our leaders, and other 1%ers, flying in private jets to Glasgow to lecture us on how we should not take an Easyjet trip to Greece next summer. It is nauseating. COP26 may well be seen as yet another sign of how it is them and us. The murder of Tory MP David Amess was another.
948 days ago
Thanks to a reader who points out that Colim Bloom, the patsy English NED at the fraud Umuthi (UHS), is a leading and well connected Tory as well as a devout Christian. For £3,000 a month he seems happy to remain a director afraid of no comeback. Perhaps that is because, like the fraudster Chris Cleverly who amazingly enough is linked into this story too, he is well connected to leading Tories. Or maybe, like Julie “lingerie on expenses” Meyer (Praise be the Lord), he is doing God’s work? Here is a news release from our beloved Government. Pass the sick bag.
1028 days ago
The reasons Matt Hancock should be fired are not that he is useless and incompetent, although he is both, or that he has betrayed his wife and kids, though he has. One suspects if those criteria were applied across Government then there would have to be a monumental reshuffle, starting at the very top.
1064 days ago
I gather that it is ouzo on cornflakes time at Peter Brailey’s this morning as Simec Energy (SAE) shares have gone into meltdown on the back of a disingenuous but unmistakeably bad statement – something clever old Peter predicted HERE. The stench of David Cameron, Lex Greensill and Tory sleaze is at the heart of the problem.
1078 days ago
Labour took a hammering across the UK last night and in this podcast I consider this rather crude analogy first used by one of its own leaders with regard to how it views the folks who were its core supporters. with reference to Northern Ireland and Jersey I argue that it cannot close the gap that now exists with its core and as such it can never hope to regain power and in Wales – as has already happened in Scotland – it may well become an irrelevancy. I refer to this piece on Tory sleaze from last week. One day that will matter but maybe it won’t for a very long time.
1079 days ago
Today, the oil company that toxic David Sefton ramped, raised funds for, did undeclared related party deals with and still owes cash to, Anglo African Oil & Gas (AAOG) was thrown off AIM as a near bankrupt shell. Last Friday it was the turn of the other company he destroyed with related party deals, Iconic (ICON) to have news and it all reads badly for Dave. I wonder how Dave’s business partner, the Tory, Damian Collins MP feels about this. More sleaze vicar?
1085 days ago
Gosh I miss my late uncle Chris and our hour long, weekly, chats that would just go on and on skipping from topic to topic almost seamlessly. He may have founded Private Eye but we both did the jokes. We both have a history of falling out with folks and made sure that we had no such bust ups so if we disagreed as we did just now and again there was always a workaround. So we disagreed on Brexit as he regarded me as a “no deal” hard line fruitcake and I wore that badge with honour. But rather than debate it we just agreed that Theresa May was the worst Prime Minister in history, laughed and moved on. Back in the nineties those chats would see us spending some time on Tory sleaze. You remember that MP who shared a bed with another chap and said he was doing it to save money? The jokes wrote themselves back then.
1373 days ago
I have had a bad day trying to record videos for MineProphets – just 2 of a scheduled 5 completed. But they were stormers. I guess the 3 will be redone in the 4 days I have left. Anyhow it will be a great show so buy your £2.99 access (which lasts until Christmas) HERE. In today’s show I discuss Versarien (VRS), Eqtec (EQT), Boohoo (BOO), Quiz (QUIZ), Photo-Me (PHTM), Supply@ME Capital (SYME) and Manolete (MANO).
1617 days ago
In the years 2015-17 I demonstrated numerous times with articles such as African Potash (AFPO), No No No you are lying bastards and African Potash – now let’s look at the lies in the RNS 6 days before the bailout placing in January, that then AIM listed African Potash run by Lyin’ Chris and Labour peer Lord Hain of sleaze had told industrial scale lies to ramp their shares and get away placings. This was fraud plain and simple….
1896 days ago
I speak not in defence of Sir Phil for there are many things one can rightly condemn him for, not least trying to gag a free press in an era when free speech is under real attack. But is he the demon the press makes him out to be today? No. He is a dinosaur and has acted wrongly but is no demon. And some of his critics, notably Lord Hain of sleaze, are rank hypocrites.
2003 days ago
The Daily Telegraph has been on this story for eight months but Britain’s most loathed businessmen has used his vast wealth to take out legal injunctions stopping the press from publishing details. However that has been blown apart by Lord Peter Hain of sleaze using Parliamentary Privilege to name Green and Hain’s comments can now be reported. The scumbag former Labour minister has for once in his life done the decent thing and told the House of Lords today:
2234 days ago
Andalas Energy (ADL) should be issuing a statement about its own solvency and other matters flagged up HERE. This company, as it stands, is insolvent. But this is AIM so instead....
2473 days ago
Don't these fools ever learn? For chancers and crooks like Darren Winters, the shysters at Globo, Blinkx, Quindell and Daniel Stewart and for lyin Chris Cleverley and Lord Hain of sleaze and for so many others, sending me a fascist lawyers letter never works out well. That is not for them at least. But it seems there is one born every day. A new letter is in demanding that three years of articles be removed, that damages and costs be paid and that I put my name to a grovelling apology dictated by this poltroon. Who do you think is daft enough to have sent it? Vote now in our latest poll with a deadline of midnight tonight.
2498 days ago
"Lyin' Chris Cleverley, fascist lawyers Memery Crystal,, NED Declan O'Brien,clueless accountants RSM Tenon, SA sleazebag MP Mark Simmonds, Phil Edmonds, Andrew Groves, we have beaten them all, we have beaten them all!. Lord Hain of sleaze, can you hear me? Lord Hain of sleaze ... your boys took a hell of a beating! Your boys took a hell of a beating!" Yes I think we can now declare victory in the war against African Potash. It never ends well for frauds especially those who hire fascist lawyers to send wanker letters to The Sheriff of AIM.
2554 days ago
This really should have been an ouzo o'clock moment as lying Chris Cleverley, Lord Hain of sleaze and the gang round at the African Potash (AFPO) fraud saw their shares suspended on the NEX lobster pot. But I was a good diabetic and had a Greek salad, medication and water instead. But I am off sick leave this morning because dissecting such unmitigated horseshit brings joy to my heart and is good for the blood pressure and the soul. This is comedy central from lyin' Chris who is still to follow through on his promise to sue me for libel. I can't think why. The Potash statement is in bold, the lie detection service is not. Brace yourself, this is funny.
2628 days ago
Yesterday, the lying fraudsters at African Potash (AFPO) announced that the now NEX Markets listed company had managed to raise £125,000 gross - this is an admission that it is bust. I refer you back to the annual report that it snuck out at no-one is watching O'clock around Christmas. As a bonus the RNS of yesterday afternoon contained one slam dunk lie from CEO lyin' Chris Cleverley and his pal the senior NED Lord Peter Hain of sleaze. But I guess no-one cares any more. Lets revert to the notes to the last audited accounts which came out at Christmas. RSM Tenon states:
2656 days ago
The fraud African Potash (AFPO) has been formally booted off AIM today as no Nomad is prepared to act for it. It is a day of shame for lyin Chris Cleverley the CEO and his senior NED Lord Peter Hain of sleaze. The shares are now only listed in the joke lobster pot that is NEX Markets, it is almost impossible to sell in any size and even harder to raise cash as a company. So Potash will soon go bust. At the weekend I explained the very odd timeline of seven days in September that lead up to the last Nomad, Cantor Fitzgerald, quitting. Now look at lyin' Chris's words since.
2663 days ago
I am sorry if I sound a bit one track minded today but you will remember that African Potash (AFPO) sent me a fascist lawyers letter ( c/o now three time losers against me Memery Crystal) demanding I pay it £2,000, unpublish my articles on it, never write on it again and pay it damages on top back in September 2016. Natch I declined the offer and the fraud that is Potash has been in freefall to insolvency ever since. Moral of the story: don't mess with The Sheriff of AIM. Now, I have a question for Lord Peter Hain of sleaze who chairs the company's remuneration committee.
2743 days ago
It is now one month and eleven days since FRAUD African Potash (AFPO) promised it would sue me for libel if I did not pay its fascist lawyers Memery Crystal two grand, write it a blank cheque and withdraw all my articles which clearly exposed it as a FRAUD. I am 2 nil up with Memery Crystal when it comes to it trying to bully me on behalf of fraudsters (Globo & Pirate Pete Landau)so I am gutted that Potash has not yet served me. What could the FRAUDSTERS have to hide from a disclosure process? Meanwhile the PR firm has, very honourably, quit, the Nomad Stewart Dickson has been fired but still senior NED Lord Peter Hain hangs on (for the cash). So by midnight Friday can you suggest a suitable caption for this picture below of the sleazy peer?
2763 days ago
Oh happy days. The only way that Monday night's Presidential debate can get better is if crooked Hillary has a coughing fit and then another pneumonia induced collapse live on air. And if anything will bring that on it is the now confirmed presence of Gennifer Flowers in the front row. Gennifer who? say the millennials who still think that the Clinton family are not pathological liars and sleaze-buckets. Welcome, my young friends, to a refresher course on the 1990s.
In the 1992 Presidential election campaign
3618 days ago
I apologise for looking scruffy. Actually I do not. Why should I dress up? I hope this video will be up before the Euro Election results are out – UKIP will, as I have predicted for ages, win.
In this I discuss the various reasons folks voted UKIP and why the political classes got the kicking they so richly deserve.
How will they respond? With more lies. UKIP will not win the next election by any stretch of the imagination. That is a 2 horse race. I won’t vote for them but I am almost glad they exist and I explain why.
My weekly financial video postcard covers sleaze on the AIM Cesspit and the launch of the 2014 AIM Cesspit awards. I very much hope that you watch it HERE
3619 days ago
And so the old parties run by the political classes are running scared of UKIP. After UKIP wins the Euros on Sunday there will be more hand wringing and talk of “we must listen.” Of course they will not. UKIP is not going to win the Westminster elections and so there is a pretence of listening to the voters but it is a sham. Which is why UKIP may not win any or many Westminster seats but it will not go away.
LibLabCon could neutralise it at a strike with just two announcements which negate the poisonous issues of sleaze and Europe.
3632 days ago
Yesterday I revealed how the City’s largest financial PR Company Buchanan is mired in scandal after one of its employees appeared to pose as a private investor to discredit shareholders opposing the (failing) management of a company it is paid £10,000 a month to represent. This appears to be a total breach of industry guidelines and if P45s are not handed out next week then the stench of cover-up will be unbearable. But this is just the tip if the iceberg as I shall explain below.
Needless to say Fleet Street has not followed up on this even though I know (I can track IP) that scores of journalists have read the piece. The journalists do not dare expose the PR firm that acts for more listed companies than anyone else. Cross Buchanan and there will be no hand-delivered scoops and no job in PR when you fancy earning real money. This is a very big story in the financial press but it just will not get covered. That shows the corruption of journalism as well as of PR and perhaps that is why fewer and fewer folks bother reading the deadwood press any more.
Remember how it was websites not the established press that broke the stories of lobbying scandals in politics and sleaze. It was the same principle at work.
This morning
3664 days ago
The Tory party can normally rely on the support of hard working folks who just want to keep more of what they earn and make a better life for them and their families. Today it is sending a message out that it does not give a flying fuck about those folk, as long as its fat, out of touch, sleazy inner circle are looked after. The Tory party and David Cameron will not be forgiven for Maria Miller.
The Culture secretary has made a million quid profit flogging her house. It was the taxpayer who funded that “investment” as Maria Miller fiddled her expenses. Maria Miller stole money from hard working taxpayers to make herself even richer.
So out of touch, stupid or arrogant is David Cameron that he does not see how the continued presence of Mrs Miller as an MP let along a minister is a complete insult to the very folks who normally are his core constituency.
It is clear that a lot of Tories cannot sense that anger but instead blather on about how this is a media storm whipped up by papers who are hostile to Miller over gay marriage or Leveson. They assume that with these patent smears they can deflect attention from the key issue her: Mrs Miller has made a million quid by bending the rules and using taxpayer’s cash. And we the peasants are furious.
Thatcher or Tebbitt would have realised this
3715 days ago
In a shameful piece of journalism, The Daily Mail today carries a piece stating that Culture Secretary Maria Miller is set to be slammed by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner Kathryn Hudson for fiddling £90,000 of expenses. Who planted this story? I bet you a fiver it was the spin department of Maria Miller. To a trained journalist it is so obvious that this THIEF is spinning hard, albeit in an incredibly amateurish fashion, to keep her nose in the trough.
The article cites sources, friends of Miller, Tory MPs but makes it clear that it has not been spoken to be team Piggy Miller. The article protests too much.
The substance of the piece is that Hudson has indeed found Miller guilty of fiddling her expenses But…
Clearly the only person who benefits from this story appearing is Maria Miller in that one is left with the impression that the Watchdog might just be a bit incompetent, that the crime is not really that serious and that if she does get axed from the cabinet it is only because she was a woman and that most MPs are essentially on her side. As such it is blindingly obvious who planted this story and who all the “sources are”. Shame on the Daily Mail for running such crap.
Looking at the points in order.
3847 days ago
Last year Liam Fox MP had to pay back £3,000 of fiddled expenses. This year the sum under discussion is 3p but in many senses it is worse. The 3p expense claim is legitimate but none the less horrendous.
The claim was made for a car journey in his constituency of 100 metres. This begs one obvious question of Mr Fox, who does not look to be exactly anorexic: “why are you such a lazy bastard – might you not have walked?”
Apart from the fact that sleazy Fox is an idle lard-arse, he also shows a total disregard for taxpayer’s cash. Surely he is aware that the costs of processing his claim for 3p will be several pounds? Does he really think that the taxpayer should be faced with such a burden so that he can reclaim three measly pence?
Of course he does. Fox may talk the talk on cutting the Government deficit but that means cuts for other folk not for the greedy political elite. He - like all the rest of those in the Westminster bubble swilling their taxpayer suibsidized booze while lecturing us on the need for minimum alcohol pricing reckon that austerity is only for "ordinary" people.
Fox. You are a scumbag. Just like the rest of the political class. As we approach November 5th I once again think warmly of the last man to enter Parliament with honest intentions.
3899 days ago
I am more than a bit excited, the inner child in me is in control. The new season is upon us and I am off to Upton Park tomorrow. My old pal Neil Masuda (who as my babysitter made my sisters and I watch the FA Cup Final on the box when Sir Trevor scored with his head) will be coming along with his latest bird. Neil, as you may remember started his long and glorious career as a peddler of sleaze on Fleet Street by breaking the Howard Jones (like to get to know you well) three in a bed scandal when on his local paper.
Anyhow, myself, Neil and his bird will meet up at Real Man Pizza before heading to the Academy. Cardiff were promoted last season so anything could happen. With Andy Carroll injured it will be interesting to see who can actually get it in the net for the Irons. Anyway, another season is almost underway. Another 40 weeks of misery is upon me. Like an addict I cannot wait and as 3 PM looms and we start “I’m forever blowing bubbles.”
I am excited already. It is almost as much fun as asking the Serious Fraud Office to investigate Pinsent Masons and Sefton.
3925 days ago
To be honest I am a bit starved of ideas and the bird wants to head off for a romantic meal so the best that I can do on the caption front is to offer up a picture from earlier. Please post your wittiest captions in the comments section below.
3932 days ago
Have the MP's awarded themselves the pay rise they need to stop them stealing on expenses/retain the best talent? I have lost track. But nothing seems to change with the political classes. And so I read today that James Palumbo, the founder of the Ministry of Sound is to be made a Lib Dem peer having given the party £500,000 (or half a Bernie). Of coure all political parties play the same game and I am sure that this can be justified. After all his Dad is a Lord and what with cocaine being found in nine loos at the Houses of Parliament last week a night club boss will feel right at home there.
Anyhow please supply your captions for this picture in the comments section below.
For what it's worth my entries are:
"We are different from the old parties...we are here to change the corrupt established way of doing politics"
or
3935 days ago
I see that my recent articles on Bulletin Board Morons have unleashed a firestorm of anonymous abuse various from Bulletin Board Morons. As I wandered along the beach and enjoyed a very nice grilled octopus lunch I pondered whether the morons have a point? For about five seconds.
The morons of course never post under their own names and then proceed to say whatever they wish. If I had a penny for every time I had received abuse from the morons over the years I could buy half of Greece. Perhaps these days I could pick up the whole country. Hidden behind the mask of anonymity they say what they like.
That is fine by me. Airstrip One is a free country. Well sort of. But please do not expect me to regard dishing out abuse without revealing your identity as courageous in any way.
Among writers (i.e. those who earn money from writing in their own name) I am a little unusual in that I am happy to dish out the abuse back. I do so in my own name. And sometimes in quite a witty manner. The BB Morons however think that this is all shocking.
Some feel I should show bravery by going onto BB threads and posting as myself. Hmmmmm.
3937 days ago
I noted here six days ago that MPs (who earn between 4 and 7 times the national average wage) reckon that if they don’t get a £10,000 pay rise they will be forced to fiddle their expenses again. But of course I got my sums wrong. It is even worse that I first thought.
For we learned at the weekend that 150 of the Westminster swine are claiming £50 a week for transport costs for their kids. That is deemed a legitimate expense. £2,500 a year tax free – that is worth £4,500 as a higher rate taxpayer. How many other "little" fittles like that are there which are all 100% legit under rules created by the MPs themselves? One suspects quite a few. And it all adds up.
As a bonus we also discovered that speaker John Bercow managed to claim £84 travel expenses for a journey of exactly one mile. Ironically it was a journey to visit the body set up to oversee MP’s expenses.
The political classes are right now thrashing about in a row about how Labour is bankrolled by Unite and the seeming corruption within Unite designed to fix election meetings. I do not give a damn about this. Or about the various corporates and dodgy hedge fund managers who bankroll the Tories. The real issue is that the entire political class is venal, corrupt and out of touch.
The battle is not between Labour and Tory or between Call Me Dave and Miliband. It really makes no difference who is in charge. Both accept the ultimate supremacy of the Evil Empire, pander to the moral sensibilities of a metropolitan elite and are happy to see the deficit remain out of control as Britain goes bankrupt every more quickly.
The battle is between the political classes who are robbing the citizenry, making Airstrip One ever less free while feathering their own nests and the rest of us.
Every time a new expenses scandal emerges or there is another episode of beltway sleaze newspaper columnists (part of the political media beltway class and inveterate expense fiddlers themselves) write “they still don’t get it do they?” Er… they never got it and they never will and any pre-election suggestion otherwise is mere pretence.
3952 days ago
Shares in AIM listed POS Company Woburn Energy (WBN) have been suspended today from the Cesspit. So if you ignored my prior warning to sell, tough luck it is too late now. And it could get worse, despite the heroic efforts of sleazy Tory MP Tony Baldry who is still picking up £3,333 a month for 4 hours work at Woburn.
3966 days ago
AFC Energy (AFC) listed on AIM in April 2007 with a stated aim of commercialising its fuel cell technology. Its chairman then and now was sleazy MP Tim Yeo. Investors in the original placing were told that the company would deliver multiple systems to customers by August 2008. Yup. Right. Natch that has not happened and the old guard (except sleazy Tim) departed a year ago. The New CEO Ian Williamson seems a decent fellow (we chatted today) but the current valuation (up 31% today thanks to a tip in the Mail on Sunday) is absurd. The valuation, the question of cash and the role of the sleazebag chairman are all matters of concern.
3966 days ago
Filmed in Spitalfields on Monday morning I guess I feel strongly about three issues covered.
1. Tax, prohibition, smoking and what we put into our bodies
2. The corruption of the political class
3. My hero of the year - the PRISM whistleblower Edward Snowden and civil liberties
3970 days ago
I have sad news to bring you. The lesbian housekeeper has lost her industrial tribunal against Mr and Mrs P, the Tory MP and his wife she accused of molesting her and suggesting a menage a trois. I guess the tribunal found it utterly unlikely that a married Tory MP would try to get it on with a woman, let alone two.
Sadly this means that we will never get to know the identity of Mr & Mrs P. My prayers to the great tribal god of sleaze went unanswered.
3971 days ago
The industrial tribunal concerning Tory MP Mr P, Mrs P and their former lesbian housekeeper gets better and better. I am praying intensely that the housekeeper wins as this is a real corker if true. Naturally if she does win Mr P will do the “honourable thing” like bribe taking Patrick Mercer (Con) or pervert Lib Dem MP Mike Hancock and ….carry on in Parliament claiming full pay and perks.
As you may remember the live-in housekeeper is suing for unfair dismissal claiming Mr and Mrs P sexually harassed her and wanted a threesome. You can read about that on this website here
Life in the P household sounds pretty highly charged. Mr P says that the lesbian housekeeper was in the habit of sunbathing naked. He does not seem to have minded as this went on for a long time. Meanwhile the housekeeper insists that Mr P would frequently walk around the house visible to both Mrs P and the domestic staff completely naked.
Back to basics, sleaze, the mid 1990s or is it 1963?
3972 days ago
Woburn Energy (WBN) is an AIM Cesspit listed oil company which today announced that it had finally sold its last assets. It is left with net cash of $2.87 million (£1.87 million). It is now classed as an investment company but if it does not make an investment by 21st June 2013 its shares will be suspended. If it makes no investment by 21st December 2013 its shares will be booted off AIM. The company says it has “to date reviewed a number of potential investment opportunities but has not yet implemented its investing policy and will do so only by investing in those opportunities that have an acceptable risk profile.” Oh dear…suspension looms. -
3973 days ago
I used to work with a great journalist called Peter Krigjsman on the Evening Standard. Having broken a major story splashed on the Standard front page about an invasion of killer frogs ( I think it was a little overhyped), Peter forever became known as Killer Frogs.
Killer Frogs is a very talented guy. To prove it here is a song he wrote and produced at the time of the MP's expenses scandal. I guess it still resonates today.
Relax, sit back and rock with Killer Frogs
3974 days ago
It seems as if Panorama and The Telegraph have nailed three Lords as well as Sir Patrick Mercer MP for asking questions in Parliament in return for cash. In a just world all would lose their titles and would be charged with something and resign at once. But will the political classes allow four of their own to face real justice? There is not a cat in hell’s chance of this.
Apparently Mercer took 24 hours to decide the “honourable” course of action after the sleazy pig knew that he was to be exposed. And even then he got it wrong. The honourable thing would be to quit as an MP at once without compensation and pay the cash he trousered to a good charity. Instead he keeps the cash and will stay in Parliament for two more years (albeit as an Independent not an Official Tory) trousering a vast wage plus expenses and then get a big payoff.
Mercer – you are not in the slightest bit honourable, you are a sleazy scumbag. But in your defence you are not alone.
How many other MPs are taking cash for arranging passes, asking questions in Parliament and assisting various companies without declaring it? In the Westminster political/media bubble other names crop up again and again. It is just that it is either hard to stand these things up or no-one can really be bothered as when you are all part of the same club, exposes make life just a bit too complicated.
If you think this story ends with Mercer or Labour’s Lord Jack Cunningham (whose dad was also done for political corruption, it is a family trait) you are sadly naïve. All the established parties know that there are rotten apples waiting to be exposed with a blue, red or yellow rosette. This scandal is not one that shows the divisions between the “mainstream” parties but the divisions between a political class united in protecting a corrupt system and their own vested interests, and the rest of us.
3974 days ago
You kind of thought that cash for questions was just a bit nineteen nineties. that after the expenses scandal the Westminster stable had been cleansed. Wrong! Those greedy mothers in parliament, not content with gunning for inflation busting pay rises are at it again, taking bribes for asking questions. Panorama has exposed not only Patrick Mercer MP but also three Lords for taking cash for asking questions about Fiji on behalf of a bogus lobbying company.
Other MPs lined up to join Mercer's all party Fiji Group, one asking if he could take his wife on the first "fact-finding mission." Mercer described most of the recruits as freeloaders. I'd describe the entitre political class as freeloaders.
Right now the political class is taking yet another well earned holiday. But the MPs and Lords will be back soon. And in that vein I ask for captions to the picture below. Post your captions in the comments section below.
For what it is worth my entry is "At the annual AIM awards dinner the Jim Ellerton and the directors of Motive TV and Verdes Management tuck into the main course and discuss how important it is to remunerate senior staff appropriately in order to attract the right talent"
Post away....
3976 days ago
Sleazey Tory Patrick Mercer MP has been caught red handed by Panorama taking money from a bogus lobbying firm to ask questions in Parliament about matters relating to Fiji. He did not declare his interests. He is a bribe taking common crook. Yet…
He has resigned the Tory whip to "avoid embarrassing his party" and says he will not seek re-election in 2015. But until then he will carry on trousering a vast salary and expenses and at the end of it get a gold plated pension. His fellow Parliamentarians seem to think this is the “honourable” thing to do. Bollocks it is.
In the private sector such behaviour would result in instant dismissal without compensation. But this is the cozy club of the political classes where the old boys all stick together. One imagines that Mercer is not the only MP who is still taking cash for asking questions.
This should not be a matter on honour but a point of law. If an MP is “on the take” he or she should be fired without compensation at once. The refusal of the political classes to accept this is just another reason they are held in such contempt by the rest of us.
4116 days ago
I have just worked a 22 hour day, juggling the needs of sick staff, bills to pay, deadlines to meet etc. That is what life is like in the private sector. The bit of the economy that employs folks, pays over taxes to support the State, etc. And the chances of myself or my staff getting a 32% pay rise this year are zippo. Frankly almost no-one in the UK will get that sort of rise this year.
But one bunch of parasites, tarnished by allegations of corruption, working 3 days in 5 and universally despised reckon they merit a 32% hike taking them from the top 5% of earners into the top 1%. Even had I worked only 21 hours yesterday I would still be livid.
This week’s caption contest is in honour of the scumbags who forget that they work for us not the other way round. Please post your captions in the comments section below.
The best caption will win an “It’s Time to leave T-shirt which you can also buy exclusively here.
4116 days ago
Are you getting a pay rise this year? Not many folks are. Some like those on welfare are, in real terms, getting a cut. Pensioners are worse off thanks in part to low interest rates. The Government needs to slash its spending. To sack people. To make them unemployed. As Call Me Dave said “we are all in it together.” Er… not quite. Some folks are more equal than others. MPs are demanding a pay rise. A 32% pay rise. Where is Guy Fawkes when you need him? These pigs are beneath contempt.
An MP already gets paid £65,378 a year plus expenses. Those were meant to have been reformed but
4135 days ago
The weekend Tomograph Newsletter will go out on Sunday Evening. This will be an abridged Christmas issue but will also announce the winner of the 2012 Pig of the Year award (EU & Westminster category).
To ensure that you receive the newsletter and these articles which will only be in the newsletter and not accessible elsewhere for some days click HERE.
The newsletter should be out on Sunday Evening.
4138 days ago
I always thought the Police Commissioner elections were a waste of space. It was just another chance of the lower members of the political establishment to stick their snouts in the trough. Step forward thieving pig Clive Grunshaw, a long serving Labour councillor and as of last month the Police and Crime Commissioner for Lancashire. He is also a thief. Go ahead and sue me Clive. Oink Oink. Sleaze. Sleaze. Oink. Oink.
The excellent Topofthecops.com blog has used FOI information to trawl Grunshaw’s expenses claims. I pass you over to that blog:
“In 2009 when Commissioner Grunshaw held roles as a County Councillor and a member of the Police Authority, he claimed that he had spent from 8 am to 1 pm on 28 September on Police Authority duties, involving a round-trip of 56 miles apparently from his home in Fleetwood to Police Headquarters at Hutton, near Preston, but then claimed 46 miles from the County Council for a round-trip to County Hall at Preston the same day, apparently being absent from home on that occasion between 12 noon and 5 pm. It is not clear how he left home on the second occasion an hour before he had arrived home from his Police Authority duties, or why he travelled 51 miles via his home instead of the 5 mile direct journey.
4147 days ago
Maria Miller MP is a former advertising executive. Her husband is a partner in a City law firm. So they are minted. But some greedy pigs just cannot get enough (of other folks cash) and the Culture Secretary is just such a pig. She should quit as an MP now and hand back £90,000 she has claimed as expenses in a way which may be legal ( it may not) but is just downright sleazy. If Dave Cameron wants to clean up politics he should fire this woman at once. He does not. And he will not.
In short Miller claimed £90,000 in expenses for here “second home” in London which is where her patents live.
4156 days ago
The Daily Mail carries a piece today alleging that a key aide to deputy PM Nick Clegg personally intervened to get £12 million of taxpayers cash fast tracked to a charity ( BookTrust) of which Mr Clegg’s wife is a prominent supporter. Apparently emails have just emerged showing that while other charities must bid for Government cash, this one just got it. Hmmm.
The piece manages to find a rent-a-quote Tory and Labour MP to demand an enquiry. Oh, another one. An enquiry a day, hip hip hooray, more money to pay, what more can I say? Do politicians ever do anything in life apart from call for enquiries? Personally I do not see why taxpayer’s cash in Bankrupt Britain is handed to charities at all. Booktrust may do great work but it a fake charity. It is now an arm of Government. That to me is a scandal.
As for Cleggy I ask you one question:
4175 days ago
In today’s sleaze round up rwo former MPs are unmasked but because they were MPs evading all punishment. It is one rule for them and one for us. First up is Westminster nonce of the day. Okay he is dead so there is no hope of prosecuting him but it appears that the late Sir Cyril Smith, the morbidly obese former Liberal MP for Rochdale was a serial abuser of teenage boys. He was named as a paedophile in Parliament today and the evidence is now flooding out.
4182 days ago
Nadine Dorries MP has today been suspended from the Tories for agreeing to appear on “I’m a celebrity Get Me Out of Here.” Oh bully for you David Cameron. I am no defender of this appalling woman but that she is heading off to Australia to make a fool of herself (while still trousering £6,158 for representing the folks of Mid Bedfordshire as their MP) is hardly a hanging offence is it?
The point about Mad Nad is that she has done far worse before and got away with it. Moreover some of Call Me Dave’s pals in the party have done far worse in recent weeks and also got away with it.
4182 days ago
I read today that dreadful MP Nadine Dorries is to appear on the ghastly TV show I’m a celebrity. Just out of interest: will she be drawing her MP’s salary and claiming any expenses when she troops off to the jungle with a bunch of C list celebs? I would hope not but I am afraid that Mad Nad has pretty good form on pushing the expenses system to its limits. Are her daughters still on the payroll? There will be those that say this spectacle degrades Westminster. I disagree.
Westminster is already degraded to such a point where politicians are held in almost universal contempt. Expenses have been systematically fiddled
4185 days ago
Dennis MacShane MP has now been found guilty of submitting fabricated expenses allowing him to steal thousands of pounds from the taxpayer. He was suspended from the House of Commons for a year but says that he has now taken the honourable step of resigning as an MP as well. Cobblers. I am reminded of chapter ten of Animal Farm by George Orwell when the pigs start to walk on two legs. No longer is it “four legs good, two legs bad.”
4335 days ago
I do not care who paid for Baroness Warsi’s various jollies abroad. I would not pay to go to a backwards kleptocracy like Saudi Arabia so I can sympathise with her not wishing to cough up for her fare to Riyadh. And so what if her business partner was once a member of some Islamofascist grouping of nutters. That is, in my view, no reflection on the chairwoman of the Conservative party. But…
